Not unusual for both parents to hunt as the chicks get bigger and need more food. The runt dying is not unusual either.....much smaller because of time lag between laying 1st & 5th egg. One could see it coming right at the start when the little one was being barged out the way by the bigger chicks. 5 chicks, in good times with food aplenty is a lot to hunt for.

@@enrobsorussell pretty much all birds of prey hatch their young like this..longer time inbetween hatching of eggs. They get fed in order of age, with the youngest getting fed as long as there is enough prey coming into the nest. This is the strategy they use to help assure at least one or two of the hatchlings fledge. Sometimes if the prey drops off quickly after the brood starts hatching they will stop brooding the rest of the eggs.

@@shannonspage9360 Not all birds of prey....some larger species always lay 2 eggs, days apart, and the biggest bullies the small one mercilessly, so much so they end up dying...no matter how much food is brought....called Cain & Abel. Harriers for instance are renowned for it, so are Eagles. As regards these Kestrels...the smallest one was not bullied, just could not compete for food seeing as the rest just barged past it being a lot stronger. As regards the adult male...he could have been passing on food at a certain spot to the female....a thing that birds of prey do a lot. I do know quite a bit about the subject....having trained falcons & hawks and bred both from time to time. I have also looked after injured raptors...and kept the ones not able to go back to the wild and released the ones that were. Last one was an injured adult male Kestrel...he ended up losing an injured eye, but was brought back to health & released later that year.

@@enrobsorussell I work for my state’s department of wildlife conservation as an ecologist. I already know what you are speaking of. Yes the larger day hunting birds of prey only lay two eggs but their environment can’t sustain many specimens.

I ❤ verbal one-upmanship :)

No, it's Captain Obvious ( please edit )

Captain obviously? 🤦🏾‍♀️

No , it was off interest to another youngster who had a peck or two .They were mainly focused on a mouse :)

Single moms make great parents bigot.

@@komicsreviewer8505 Helena didn't say anything about being a single mother = weakness. She said having only one parent around makes raising the chicks harder. Might want to ready more carefully next time before flying off the handle and getting defensive in the name of women or whatever.

@@CamineKasuka Your close-minded bigotry is noted.

@@CamineKasuka Single Mothers are JUST as capable is NOT MORE so than two parent families.

How would the prey be divided? Older chicks decide who gets first "dibs" on feeding, not the parents. The 3 biggest chicks are relatively similar in size, degree of aggression will decide things.

That was really funny. Nice to be able to laugh at an otherwise grim video.

Can't place human ethics on a animal, if every single chick survives then food scarcity becomes a potential problem even more then it already is in some cases.

Kind of a mean spirited way to say it.. 😒 He was crushed to death.. Very sad really 🥀

@@kathleenmccaffery1313 he was not crushed to death he was last born he was the runt. He was the smallest weakest sickly bird. They are born mostly just so the other siblings can eat them when they croak It’s nature

@@dannysavagedraftguru I know the runt of the brood have little chance of survival.. I fostered two little robins last summer.. Their nest fell when I was trimming a shrub. One was ~4 days and the other was the runt.. Eyes not open.. Barely feathered. They fledged successfully in four weeks. I'm aware that would not have been the outcome if nature had taken its normal course. Tell me Danny>would you have done something like that? 🤔

Birds are hydrated via the flesh they eat. They also have just one hole through which they defecate, pee, and birth eggs. A pretty efficient hole!

It’s moisture in the meat only.

Mites? Someone gotta get insecticides and spray inside nest and on those chicks.

Just this sector.

Sad to watch , those little guys are starving